Childhood Heroes
One of the most exciting things that this year has dished up for me is to be part of this up-and-coming new company, Childhood Heroes. It was the brainchild of Nathan Butler and Cathryn Warren, who together are U&I direct. Basically, I'm doing all the illustration for a series of personalised books, each of which is based around a particular real-life hero. At the moment we're focusing on sports heroes, and have just put out our first release with socceroo Tim Cahill - cricketers Brett Lee and Michael Clarke also have books in the works. The really cool thing about the idea is that when you order a book you specify your childs details - name, friends names, hair style, hair color, skin tone, and then they become the main character in the book, with the text and illustrations matching their details, so they can personally go on an adventure with their hero - like kicking the winning goal for Australia with Tim Cahill!
Tim Cahill's book was released 3 weeks ago (it's taken me this long to catch up with myself!) at Giorgio Armani in Sydney. Armani generously hosted and catered the launch, and Alan Jones was the MC. Now we have books with Brett Lee and Michael Clarke in the works.
We've been getting fantastic feedback from parents - one little boy was absolutely convinced that Tim Cahill had turned up to watch his game, just like in the book, and another told his mum to keep on trying to put up his bunk beds because Tim Cahill said "Never give up" in the book! Cute, huh? It shows that we're hitting the spot with our target audience, anyway. Delightful comments from happy customers:
You have made a little boy in Monterey and a grandmother in Maroubra very, very happy. Harison has shown everyone his book and is so proud of it. He even slept with it under his pillow the day he got it. Thank you again.
We received our book today! It was so exciting to read and we couldn't wipe the smile off our sons face. The book is fantastic quality and the story is so inspiring for young soccer hopefuls, not only for soccer but for values for life too!! He took it to bed and can't stop talking about it.
